Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Week 28-31/38

Another chunk of week gone due to overseas exercise. Haha, Brunei and then before you know it, BAM Taiwan!

Day 1 (28 July, Tuesday)
Just your average day of settling in-processing at 恒春 camp. Busy day.

Day 2
Ex Comet, also known as navigation familiarization exercise. It was quite an experience considering that it was the first time we were doing this in open terrain.

Day 3
Had commanders' recce for Ex Scorpio, a company live firing exercise (Given the Platoon Sergeant appointment) Wow, the view up there is quite up there (ahahaha geddit? :D) The amount of pre-planning before an exercise an officer has to do...

Day 4
So I heard the non-appointment holders had quite a relaxing day of lepak GRRR oh well, anyway everyone went to the area objective to walk the ground today. Surprisingly a lot more "Anti-Personnel Mines" than before (sorry guys/ gals, army joke. But I'm nice so I'll let you all on the joke. They refer to cow dung XD, the similarity being us people tend to avoid it like mines)

Day 5
Ex Scorpio blanks firing. Nothing much to say, apart from the sweltering weather causing many to *(%*%&#$!(#^$ and keep drinking water.

Day 6
Ex Scorpio live firing, can't really say it was scary because the planning and safety measures were carefully implemented and enforced.

Day 7-8
Ex Green Beret. Was supposed to be a OPEN TERRAIN navigation exercise which would be DIFFERENT but as you all know, NS being NS, nothings goes as planned. Turned out it was CLOSED TERRAIN most of the time and being so, nothing different from any other normal navigation exercises. My detail was different from my JCC detail but it did not matter. Basically everyone turned on man-mode LOL #postJCCsyndrome
*We did better than other details somehow*

Day 9
Ex Taurus 1 & 2. Our instructors decided to shorten these exercises into one day, reason being the supposed hurricane is EDIT:WOULD HIT Taiwan and they want to push forward Taurus in case Ex Homerun gets affected (it did anyway). Another reason was so that we had one day to rest, which again is not a vocabulary found in NS. Oh and the hurricane upgraded to a cyclone.

Day 10-11
Supposed admin rest day. Spent the day doing AOP. Warning orders issued down to us today and we had to be under lockdown for 24 hours. Mixed emotions regarding the lockdown because I was actually looking forward to using the PANTES (Personal Area Network Tactical Engagement System) yet I'm too tired to want to carry on with missions.

Day 12-14
By right, Ex Homerun 1 & 2 cancelled and we start with Ex Homerun 3, but hey NS! So by some stroke of luck, we started with Ex Homerun 2, of which I was appointed... *drumroll*... Platoon Sergeant (kudos to you if you guessed correct!) Continued with the rest of the missions.

Day 15
Ahem *cough* ahem, sorry to all readers but for the sake of any officer cadets reading my blog, I got to keep what happened today/ midnight a secret. Sorry oopsie!

Day 16
Out-processing, and lepaking the rest of the day.

Day 17
Nights Out @ 垦丁. Shiok ahha.

Day 18
Weird day comprising of kit bag inspection and more canteen breaks? Boring day in general.

Day 19-21
R & R. Eat, explore, chill, eat, window shop! Probably the only interesting situation I've been into was @ 忠孝复兴站. I went to SOGO shopping mall, which is like Orchard Road on steroids. On literally every floor, there were at least 5 salespersons greeting me with a deep bow as I ascended the escalator, 2 at every mini-outlet within the level and 3 at every corner. HOLY, there's even a lift attendant just to attend to you. W-o-w, just wow. Oh, and the theme parks were cool.

Homesick feels strong this time, finally touched down at Changi Airport. So glad to be back.

P.S. Not really a photo kind of person, so yep no photos. Memories are etched in the brain, not stored in a hard disk~

My pull-up records

18 pullups Completed on 18 November 201019 pullups Completed on 15 February 201120 pullups Completed on 30 June 201121 pullups Completed on 1 April 201222 pullups Completed on 5 May 201223 pullups Completed on 12 June 201224 pullups Completed on 15 May 201425 pullups Completed on 15 May 201426 pullups Completed on 21 May 201427 pullups Completed on 21 May 201428 pullups Completed on 21 May 201429 pullups Completed on 31 May 201430 pullups Completed on 31 May 2014++++++Current: 5 muscleups